Charge Systems
Environment charges are rarely distinguished from environmental taxes and are often used interchangeably, creating an unnecessary source of confusion and often a source of friction between Ministries of Finance and Environmental Agencies. In this study we distinguish between charge systems and fiscal instruments. Charges are defined as payments for use of resources, infrastructure, and services and are akin to market prices for private goods. One way of thinking of charges is as “prices” for public goods or publicly provided private goods. They differ from market prices for private goods because they are not market determined but are administratively set by a government agency, a public utility, or other types of regulated natural monopoly. This contrasts them with taxes which are not payments for “services” but a means for raising fiscal revenue. Peguvian taxes, however, may be thought of as a charge for the use of the environment's assimilative capacity (a natural resource or public good) and hence, analogous to a user charge.
A second difference is that taxes are connected to the budget, forming part of the general government revenues while charges are extra-budgetary, aiming to recover cost for a specific public investment or more appropriately, to finance the long-term marginal cost of supply. More importantly, charges are used as instruments of demand management and when set optimally (equal to the long-term marginal supply cost), they may or may not recover supply cost. When the long-term marginal supply cost is falling, “optimal” user charges result in a deficit; when it is rising, they result in a surplus. The deficit is usually met by a subsidy from the general budget, while the surplus either goes to the budget or more often is prevented through regulation of the tariffs charged by a public utility.
This connection with the general budget and the propensity to supply utilities (e.g., water, electricity), public services, and use of infrastructure at zero or nominal cost, charges are perceived more as taxes than as prices. Yet, because there is still a correspondence between use and payment, user charges are still seen as a means of partial cost recovery rather than as a source of general revenue.
If anything, finance ministries might welcome a severance of the link between deficit generating
utilities and the general budget. However, a problem does arise in the case of pollution charges, which (a) are not seen as a means of cost recovery or payment for service or resource use and (b) can potentially raise large amounts of revenue. Environmental ministries prefer to view pollution charges as user fees and want the revenues earmarked for environmental investments to abate pollution and to rehabilitate degraded environments.
Finance ministries prefer to view pollution charges as taxes and hence as a source of general
revenue to be allocated between alternative uses in order to maximize the social rate of return without regard to the origin of the revenues. Earmarking is simply viewed as a distortion.
While there is a serious issue here, which is addressed in the companion study on environmental
financing (Panayotou, forthcoming), the exclusive emphasis on the financing effect of charges in
general (as in cost recovery) and of pollution charges in particular, is misplaced. The primary objective of charges ought to be the change in the incentive structure facing the users of scarce resources so as to induce a realignment of their behavior with social interests. In this spirit, user charges are instruments for reducing wasteful use, managing demand, and inducing conservation and secondarily, are instruments for recovering cost or financing supply expansion. Similarly, pollution charges are instruments for internalizing external costs and encouraging pollution control and, are also a means for raising revenues to finance environmental investments. It is possible to design a system of charges that is revenue neutral (i.e., it raises no revenues), yet accomplishes the desired level of pollution reduction.
We may divide charge systems into three groups. The first group may be called pollution charges, this includes emission charges, effluent charges, solid waste charges, noise pollution charges, and product charges. When set at optimal levels (equal to the marginal damage cost), pollution charges are identical to Peguvian taxes.
Sedang diterjemahkan, harap tunggu..
